[for marcus]

[signed_sabrina]

Sabrina holds it together as long as she can.

She holds it together until she can't.

It's a Wednesday night and she's taking care of the dishwasher before she heads upstairs to study. Studying gets more pointless by the night, but maintaining her grades seems like a benchmark in normal and will ensure that she moves through the year with as little trouble as possible.

Salem sits on the counter, the rest of the household not really caring if he does so, so long as they clean it. Where he'd once roamed the city in wide loops, he's now in her orbit most of the time.

She picks up a glass, not registering how wet it is until she turns and it flies from her hand, shattering on the ground. Sabrina looks at the pieces of glass, her hand shaking.

A sob rips free in a voice she hardly recognizes as her own, and she sinks to the ground. The tears tear through her, painful and wracking, loud until she can hear herself echoing through the house. She can't stop, she can't stop.

Salem finds his way into her lap, and she clings to her familiar, trying to muffle her sobs in his dark fur.

Comments

[signed_sabrina]

Her chest tightens up, and the fresh wave of tears rolls down her cheeks, spurred on by the shaking of her head.

"I can't leave Rosie there alone, not with those people, not when I'm part of the reason they've been awful to her. Last year, I just took care of it, and they were scared of me, too scared to do much, but it..." She trails off. "It's just me and Rosie against the school, it feels like, and the best way to make sure she's okay is keeping my head down."

Sabrina gives a watery hiccup. "I should have told you, I know. I wasn't, I wasn't ready, and I did have them handled, but I screwed other things up instead."

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Do you need me to visit the school?" he asks.

Rosie may not be his, not in the same way Sabrina is, but she had been at the Home for a time and between that and how important she is now to Sabrina, he feels responsible for her in some ways. Enough that he has absolutely no problem taking their problems to someone else at the school, someone who might actually be able to make a difference.

But he'll also keep his distance if she wants him to.

"It isn't that much longer," he says. "I'll do whatever I can to help."

[signed_sabrina]

Do you need me to visit the school?

Sabrina has to think about that, because the answer only comes with more complications, and things she's not sure she's ready to say. Only-- only, she can't do this any longer.

And she can't leave Rosie vulnerable.

"It might be a good idea," she says, quiet, subdued. "They-- they knew that between Charlie and Rosie and me and Nick," and she manages to get his name out without a sob, "we had some unorthodox relationships. There were rumors. It wasn't so hard to deal with then, I felt like I could handle anything."

But she can't.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"But with Nick gone, it's harder," he says in a soft voice. "I know, duck. I know."

Maybe he doesn't, not in any way that he can relate to what she's experiencing, but he understands what she's implying. With a more solid foundation, all that nonsense would be easier to put aside, but when one is mourning and hearing such garbage, it only weighs heavier.

"I'll go," he says. "But do you think Rosie might consider finishing out the year with something like home schooling?"

[signed_sabrina]

"It was easier to feel better about my... not so human side, with Nick around. Like maybe even if it was just us, I could change what being a witch or the Path of Night or even Hell, I could make something good out of it, because we were something good."

It's not something she's voiced to either Charlie or Rosie, not to anyone, but she feels the truth when she says it. She knows whatever Path she's walking, she's not alone, and she still has to admit it's not the same.

"I don't know. If I try not to think with the part of me that's perpetually ready to rain down hellfire on my classmates... I think it's easier this year. Maybe it's faded, or maybe it's because I'm trying. I guess I have to really talk to her about it."

[pushbackthedarkness]

"You're the only person here like you," Marcus says. In a way, he understands that. There's no one else quite like him in Darrow, no one who hears God, who can begin to understand what it's like when He's inside Marcus's head.

"You two should talk," he says. "And come talk to me about it, too. With all the volunteer hours I put in at the Home, I know a thing or two about the home schooling curriculum. I could help you both with it."

It might mean he would have to take fewer hours at the Home, at least until the end of the year, but he'll do it happily for the two of them.